


Sorrow

by quodpersortem



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pain, Self Harm, self injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:16:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quodpersortem/pseuds/quodpersortem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anger has always been Derek's anchor, yes. But over the years it's also become something else, something much darker. He tries to fight it but sometimes, Derek loses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youneedmetosurvive (Tumblr)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=youneedmetosurvive+%28Tumblr%29).



> WARNING! There's a trigger warning for self injury here. Please, _please_ take heed of it. There are very graphic descriptions so if you feel like you might get triggered, don't read!

It’s like Peter said. Anger has always been Derek’s anchor.

Over the years it has become so much more though. Something that festers inside him, carefully cocooned but rotten to the core.

It is his greatest weakness; the reason why Laura took him away from Beacon Hills and the reason why he returned to his original homestead once she died. Revenge springs from anger.

Why he thinks being a werewolf is perfect for him. 

He doesn’t want friends because he doesn’t want to _hurt_ them, because he inevitably ends up doing so. Which, on its own, has lead to him never been able to keep a job for any longer than two or three months. 

It is the reason why he doesn’t feel any regret over killing Mrs. Argent or Kate's death. He wouldn’t care if he properly orphaned Allison, because her dad angers him like no one else. 

He exhausts himself with exercise day after day. He starts with a run in the forest, every morning, until he’s out of breath. Then sit-ups. Followed by push-ups. Pull-ups. Weightlifting too but only if he can get his hands on something sufficiently heavy—sometimes he even uses the Camaro, if he’s feeling particularly distressed.

It helps that he can jump up roofs, that he never gets a chance to overwork himself to the point of sustaining an injury so bad he can’t work out anymore—because if he rips a muscle, it knits together almost as fast as it snapped. It helps that Peter is a mean son of a bitch and that they’re chasing the Kanima, and that he gets hurt. _A lot._

Sometimes, though.

Sometimes it’s still not enough.

And then the carefully crafted cocoon will crack and the anger flares up.

-

He tries not to think “it’s my fault” with each pull up he does in the morning. To not think “kill,” every single step along the 30K run he takes that afternoon. He tries to focus on the pain in his body and not think of all the people who died before their time, even when he’s been at his sit ups for so long that his stomach muscles feel like red-glowing iron that’s strung so tight across his organs that his stomach has started to protest.

Nothing works. By the time he catches his breath, everything that has happened comes rushing back to him full-force.

The guilt he still feels over letting his family suffer and die is only accumulated by the guilt he feels over letting his pack down last month. 

Then the anger kicks in again. He’s not just angry at Kate being the instigator of his shitty life, but—and this _especially_ \--angry at himself. Gut-wrenching, mind-blowing anger that makes him see red without wolfing out, that makes him tear at the pillows of the couch, digging his claws into the fabric until there are ten perfect little holes in them—placed next to at least another hundred of exactly the same-sized gaps.

And this anger, it leaves him unable to breathe, or to think sanely. It leaves him to go crazy, the way he thinks murderers might go crazy, and he can only barely suppress his wolf. He’s not sure if he’ll still be in control at all if he allows the change to take place.

He’s scrolled through the saved contacts in his phone a couple of times, thinking that maybe he should call someone. He knows that Laura used to do that—hang out with her friends to take her mind off her worries so she was able to relax—but Derek isn’t Laura.

His claws are still out when he puts brings his hand to his forearm. 

It’s not the first time he’s done this—not by far—but it’s the first time that he can’t bring himself to _care_ about it at all. To injure himself without feeling guilty. To have reached this level of fucked-up. No one will notice. His skin doesn’t scar, after all. He won’t ever need stitches, and he doesn’t have to explain anything to anyone as soon as all of the evidence is gone.

He feels sick when he makes the first cut, able to feel and even hear the skin ripping under his finger. As soon as the pain kicks in, though, he can breathe again, think a little clearer, and he digs his nail in again—this time a little deeper. 

Derek keeps clawing at his arm until it’s an open wound, the pink healing skin covered in blood while in other places there are gashes that are so wide and deep he can see the fucking ligament underneath, the muscle, the bone. Blood is dripping down his fingers, down his elbow and onto the floor, and he thinks that maybe he should’ve thought to put a towel underneath but it’s too late for that now.

It’s not like anyone’s going to _ask_ about another blood stain on the floor of his house.

He sits there, waiting until the blood has dried, and when he washes it off in the sink his skin is whole again. He tries to swallow away the burning feeling in his throat, thick and heavy and almost like he wants to cry.

Derek cleans up messily and falls asleep on the couch because he’d feel too lonely in his too large room, upstairs in his too cold house.

-

The taste of whiskey still clings to his tongue when he falls back onto the couch. His lungs are sore, his body aches, but his body is healing and he still wants to howl. 

He grabbed a dirty dishtowel from the kitchen and hesitates for a moment because it’s probably unsanitary enough to give him an infection, but then decides that it doesn’t really matter anyway. His claws are out in seconds and then he’s bleeding with his head thrown back, the band around his chest finally loosening enough for him to breathe a little more freely.

He slashes again, and again, and the pain blinds him but the tension of the anger is leaving his body. He thinks of Stiles, the insolent little kid, and of Scott who keeps walking away, of Erica who keeps trying to seduce him even though Derek’s not interested and Isaac’s passiveness, Boyd’s incapability of killing a deer even though he can kill a person. He thinks of all that and lets it bleed out until he’s dizzy from the blood loss and then drops the soaked the towel on the floor. 

Derek falls asleep like that, curled up on the couch still trembling and probably pale as his body tries to recover while he fights it best as he can.

 

The pack comes bustling in hours later, and if they smell his blood they don’t mention it. Scott comes strolling in behind them and raises an eyebrow at Derek as he tries to rub the sleep from his eyes.

He tells them what to do then, gives tips, and tries to pretend he doesn’t feel empty inside, that he is fine.

He doubts he’s ever been further away from it.

-

He keeps going.

He keeps doing it. 

First it happens once a week. Then twice.

It doesn’t take long before he does it daily. It’s more effective than push-, pull- and sit-ups combined. It’s more effective than killing deer at night.

There’s a routine, too. He’ll spread a few old towels on the floor underneath him, check his surroundings to make sure no one will come walking in on him because he’s _ashamed_ of it. Only then he wolfs out.

He grits his teeth because it still hurts like it did the first time, the flesh splitting under his nails. There’s only skin for a moment and then the blood comes spilling out, giving Derek a head rush. He sighs into the feeling, feels his body relax a little, and then keeps going. One after another. Left to right, rinse and repeat. 

His senses shut down and he knows he’s vulnerable—the stench of blood in his nose, his heart beats loud in his ears, and he’d thought that looking around the room every once in a while would suffice to keep him safe but it turns out his eyes can’t take over the function of his hearing and smell. 

“Derek, shit, are you alright?” Stiles is yelling before Derek can do anything about it. He’s not even able to hide the evidence, because his nails are still digging into his skin when Stiles walks into the room with his eyes and mouth wide open. He takes one glance at Derek’s arms and then rushes off to the kitchen. Derek hopes he’s leaving, that Stiles can’t stand blood, but instead he re-enters with a towel in his hand. Derek’s pretty sure it’s Stiles’ own.

“Derek?” Stiles asks again, kneeling in front of Derek this time, and Derek doesn’t look at him, just keeps breathing and lets his wolf fade away. He’s not sure what he’ll see in Stiles’ eyes—disgust or anger, or something worse.

His eyes are burning, and that just gets worse when Stiles starts to wipe away the blood. He’s gentle, far gentler than Derek ever remembers being with himself, and he wants to tell Stiles that but he doesn’t have the energy to. It feels like his body is empty and his only thought in response to that is that he wants to feel more pain.

When Stiles is done cleaning up Derek’s arms, he trails his fingers along the still slightly pink skin. Then his hand comes up to Derek’s face, unexpected and warm in a way Derek hasn’t felt since he was a kid, tenderly wiping away a tear that was dripping down his cheek. 

“Hey, Derek,” Stiles says again, and this time Derek does look. He’s not met by anger or disgust. Instead Stiles just looks inexplicably _sad_. Derek sighs and it sounds like a shiver. 

Then Stiles pushes himself up and Derek thinks that this is it, that Stiles is going to brush it off after this moment of gentle caring and pretend it never happened. Instead there’s a set of arms, long and gangly and pale, folding themselves around Derek’s shoulders. Derek doesn’t intend to but he leans into the hug anyway, reciprocating after a minute when Stiles says, “I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’m-“ Derek starts because he feels like he should say something, but Stiles interrupts him.

“You don’t have to say anything,” and it’s almost as if he shushes some of Derek’s mind, as if the underlying meaning of that sentence tells him that it’s okay, that Stiles doesn’t judge Derek, that Derek is allowed to feel bad about what has happened in his life.

His body starts shaking as his adrenalin and endorphins levels are lowering, but Stiles just keeps on holding him. Derek is feeling cold but Stiles is warm by his side, and slowly he starts to relax more and more.

Eventually he doesn’t even notice that he falls into a dreamless sleep for the first time in months.

-

Stiles is looking down at Derek. His heart is swollen and heavy and feels kind of sore—or he might be confusing his heart with his throat.

In either case, Derek is sound asleep and his arm seems to be fully healed. Stiles knew that Derek wasn’t okay but he didn’t think he’d go as far as hurting himself. Yet, he feels like he’s done something good here. To not chastise Derek but hold him.

His features are relaxed and Stiles thinks that this is what Derek might have looked like if he’d had a normal life. If his family hadn’t died, if Laura was still alive, if they’d never left Beacon Hills in the first place. That this would’ve been a boy Stiles would pass one morning and think, “Hey, he’s hot!” and fantasize about the rest of his life.

Now, now he’s an awkward chunk of muscle in Stiles’ arms, and they don’t fit together all that well but Stiles thinks that’s something that can develop. That it feels better to be around Derek now than it did when they first met. 

And of course it will take a hell of a long time until Derek is fixed and Stiles tells himself he won’t burden Derek with how he feels about him, but there’s hope in the pit of his stomach. Not the hope of him wanting Derek to get better just for himself, just to have a shot at being something beyond friends with this man (even if all that is definitely there, too), but the hope that Derek will feel better.

For now, Stiles settles for a kiss pressed to Derek’s forehead. For a moment, the room stays quiet, and then Derek sighs. 

When Stiles looks at him again, his features seem to have gained some sort of contentment in them—and the whisper of a smile plays with Derek’s lips.

~ Le Fin


End file.
